NFL: Good running backs never go out of style

NEW ORLEANS - Long ago, there was a way to get from here to there: by zeppelin - it was all the rage. Earlier, the preferred way to go was by stagecoach. Or by burro.

NEW ORLEANS — Long ago, there was a way to get from here to there: by zeppelin — it was all the rage. Earlier, the preferred way to go was by stagecoach. Or by burro.

In the NFL , there was a preferred way that teams moved the ball down the field. It was called “ by running back.”

For decades, that was how teams chose to move downfield. It was bloodier, it was more brutal, but teams back in the day were kind of fond of it. It allowed stronger clubs to physically push around weaker ones, and it made stars out of the men who endured collisions along the way.

Then the rules were changed to value the passing game. The world fell out of love with running backs, and the NFL looked more like fireworks than wagon trains. Doesn’t everyone nowadays prefer to fly than to drive?

Not a couple of old-school guys who ran their teams all the way to the Super Bowl. Along the way, Ray Rice and Frank Gore reminded everyone that running backs are still important, after all.

“I think the running back is as valued as ever,” Rice said, “especially after what (Minnesota’s) Adrian Peterson did this year” in making a run at the NFL single-season record.

Maybe in Minnesota, in Baltimore, in San Francisco. But some teams have all but abandoned the running game. For instance, the New York Giants won last year’s Super Bowl despite having the NFL’s lowest-rated running game. Over the past 10 Super Bowls, five teams have won despite being among the 10 worst running offenses in the league.

Consider that from 1986 to 1990, the NFL draft featured an average of 5.4 running backs taken in the first round. The past 10 years, that number has dropped to 2.8. Some teams no longer consider running back a premier position.

The Ravens do. They have Rice. The 49ers do. They have Gore.

Gore, 29, is the back with the battered body. He has had surgery on both shoulders, both knees and a hip. Yet for six of the past seven years, he has run for more than 1,000 yards, and he still envisions himself playing four or five more years.

And why not? He has run so long, he has gone from a bad team to a good one.

Gore shrugs when asked about the game moving away from the running back. Whatever it takes, he said.

“He’s a bull,” Rice said of Gore. “He gets downhill on you very fast. He’s more elusive than people think he is. If you watch Frank Gore, he doesn’t take the hits; he delivers them because of his low center of gravity. To be through what he’s been through, the guy is a warrior.”

Gore, likewise, is a fan of Rice. Four straight 1,000-yard seasons will do that.

“He’s a great back,” Gore said. “Tough. (He can) block, run, catch. He can do it all. I love his game. He’s probably shiftier than I am. … He’s tough, and if you’re tough, you can play this game."

This year, Gore rushed for 1,214 yards and added 234 receiving. Rice rushed for 1,143 and added 478 on receptions.

They know, however, that most of the chatter this week will be about the quarterbacks, Joe Flacco of the Ravens and Colin Kaepernick of the 49ers. That’s the way the NFL is.

“The quarterback is the cream position,” Rice said. “If I was in charge, they would still be in the headlines.”

Maybe. But these are old-school running backs. Before Sunday is over, they might make fans remember the way Marcus Allen looked in the Super Bowl, and Tim Smith, and John Riggins, and Larry Csonka.

Put a goal line in front of them, and Gore and Rice are pretty good. For the best running backs, that never changes.